David Addington, owner the Warfield and Showdog restaurant stands for a portrait on Market Street where he hope some day to see giant tourist attracting billboards on Friday Sep. 23, 2009 in San Francisco, Calif. He is a supporter of Prop. D which would allow such signs on Market between 5th and 7th streets.

David Addington came to San Francisco in 2003 with big plans and ideas, and the money and gumption to try them. He bought up a swatch of blighted Mid-Market in 2004 for a reported $6.4 million, convinced the street was on the verge of a revival.

He was right. It just didn't happen soon enough.

Addington has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, despite the fact that the area recently added Internet giant Twitter and an assortment of smaller tech firms. Unfortunately, Addington said, his creditors are neither willing to wait for payment nor to restructure the terms of the loan.

"Banks are a lot harder to work with now," said Addington, who moved here from Atlanta. "We have a project in the works, but banks want to be paid now. Time will tell if this is going to work out OK or not."

Addington says the bankruptcy doesn't affect his ownership of the historic Warfield Theatre, which he bought for nearly $11 million.

But it does put a serious crimp in his idea to transform the street. He has been a major booster of the Mid-Market revival. He tried to put a high-end restaurant into the area and sponsored a ballot initiative in November 2009 that would have used revenue from electronic billboards to fund an arts and entertainment district.

Local critics excoriated the proposal, claiming it would ruin the ambiance of the neighborhood. Sure enough, when the measure failed the ambiance - urine-soaked doorways, graffiti-smeared plywood, and X-rated entertainment - remained untouched.

"Things were a little tougher to do in San Francisco than I anticipated," Addington said. "I'm not the first to say that and I probably won't be the last."

He's not giving up. He's hopeful a renegotiated payment plan can be arranged so he can go forward with another sweeping, but secret, idea. Look for something in two or three months, he says.

"It is very much in keeping with the return of these blocks to an arts and theater district," he said. "This time we're going to have a few more chefs in the kitchen and it is going to be a little better baked."

Until then, he's still got his partial ownership of Showdogs, the gourmet sausage and beer restaurant.

"I own just enough to get a deal on a hot dog," he said.

San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr says 50 percent of all robberies in the city involve electronic devices, with smart phones a major part of that total. In December I wrote a column asking why cell phone companies don't allow customers to disable their stolen phone.

The idea would be to use the unique serial number that is transmitted with every call. When a phone was stolen, calls to and from that number would be blocked.

Suhr is among a group of chiefs in major cities that has been discussing the idea in the Police Executive Research Forum, a national group of his peers. "I am absolutely behind it," Suhr said. "If those devices could be rendered into a piece of plastic, we'd see robberies down."

Suhr voted in favor of a resolution sent to the Federal Communications Commission asking the agency to require mobile phone carriers to disable stolen devices. New York Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) is also reportedly looking into the idea as a member of a senate committee on privacy, technology, and the law.

When the column appeared, there were complaints from the phone companies that the technology wasn't effective or was too difficult to use.